Boswell Is The First Of Biographers.

With The Dead There Is No Rivalry, With The Dead There Is No Change.

He [charles Ii] Was Utterly Without Ambition. He Detested Business, And Would Sooner Have Abdicated His Crown Than Have Undergone The Trouble Of Really Directing The Administration.

The Business Of The Dramatist Is To Keep Himself Out Of Sight, And To Let Nothing Appear But His Characters. As Soon As He Attracts Notice To His Personal Feelings, The Illusion Is Broken.

The Study Of The Properties Of Numbers, Plato Tells Us, Habituates The Mind To The Contemplation Of Pure Truth, And Raises Us Above The Material Universe. He Would Have His Disciples Apply Themselves To This Study, Not That They May Be Able To Buy Or Sell, Not That They May Qualify Themselves To Be Shopkeepers Or Travelling Merchants, But That They May Learn To Withdraw Their Minds From The Ever-shifting Spectacle Of This Visible And Tangible World, And To Fix Them On The Immutable Essences Of Things.

A History In Which Every Particular Incident May Be True May On The Whole Be False.